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DISCOURSE 



ON 



THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSAKY 



OF 



THE BIRTH 



OF 



WILLIAM PENN, 

Delivered in tlic INDEPENDENCE HAIL at Philadelphia, 

On the 24th October, 1844, 

BEFORE 

THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 

BY 

JOB R. TYSON, 

ONE OF THE VICE-PRESIDENTS. 



■^^^^^^ ®^® •^*^^^'~ 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN PENINGTON, 169 CHESTNUT S TREET, 

John C. Clark, Printer, GO Dock Street. 

1845. 






f. 



^ivA, % O txOtA.A^ 






DISCOURSE 



THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 



BIRTH OF WILLIAM PENN. 



Gentlemen of the Historical Society, 

We commemorate the present Anniversary of the Landing 
of William Penn on these shores, under circumstances of pe- 
culiar impressiveness. Our late venerable President has 
expi'essed a desire in his Will, that the Historical Society 
should regularly celebrate the day, either alone, or in con- 
junction with another institution, by which its observance had 
been formerly appropriated. In complying with a request 
thus solemnly made, we not merely obey the last wishes of 
our departed President, authoritative as they are, but we per- 
form an act of filial, if not of patriotic duty, — a duty as spon- 
taneous and pleasing in the discharge, as it is high and con- 
trolling in its obligations.* 

But the present Anniversary has an emphatic claim upon 
our notice, as an historical era. With this day is completed 
a period of two centuries since the nativity of the illustrious 
Founder of Pennsylvania. The occasion, therefore, is oppor- 
tune, to refer to some of the leading principles of his life, and 
the characteristic features of his colonial policy. 

A summary retrospect is all that can I'easonably be expect- 
ed, from the brief period allowed me for preparation; but 
however imperfect and meagre the review, it cannot fail to 

* Vide Appendix, Note 1. 



awaken the warmest filial regard, the most grateful emo- 
tions to him and his companions, for our priceless inheritance 
of virtue and of freedom. 

William Penn was born to a competent estate, with the ad- 
vantages of an honourable descent, and the highest political 
connexions in England. The only son of Admiral Penn, 
who had added not a little to the naval glory of his country, 
he was carefully educated at the University of Oxford, and 
gave promise of an elevated and brilliant manhood. How 
could it be otherwise, when we recall the traits which all his 
cotemporaries ascribe to him; — a striking countenance, a fine 
person, a manly and refined demeanour, a playful wit, an open 
and even joyous disposition? The solicitude of a watchful 
and ambitious father, the influence of powerful friends, the 
personal friendship of a monarch, — all these combined to in- 
vite him to a career of worldly eminence and fame. To 
spurn these advantages — to put back the hand which was 
kindly stretched out to advance him — to forget the authority 
of a father to whom he was most tenderly attached — to adopt 
the rigid and self-denying principles of a despised sect; — these 
revealed, at an early age, the germs of that native force of 
mind, that originality and independence of thought, which 
conspicuously marked his character through subsequent life. 
Such conduct in a youth may be censured as frovvard, or con- 
demned as unnatural, and the future man may be exposed to 
the reproach of visionary delusion or heated fanaticism. But 
harsh as may be our judgment of the act, all must admire the 
disinterestedness of the motive; and though we may refuse to 
it the praise of prudence, we cannot deny to it the virtue of 
sincerity. No man, not actuated by a sense of what he be- 
lieved to be right; no one, not led by an irresistible impulse, 



5 



or impelled by the convictions of a superior influence;— could 

so far abandon the ordinary landmarks of human discretion, 

or so far deviate from the high road to worldly honour. 

Twice expelled from his father's roof— estranged from his 

longing and warm affections— deprived of the means of daily 

support— exposed to the derisive finger of his old associates — 

and consigned over and over again to the ignominy of a prison 

with thieves and murderers;— we see Penn steadily adhering 

to his principles, and without abating a jot or tittle, triumphing 

over the pains which the spirit of inventive tyranny could 

inflict. 

Justum et tenacem propositi virum, 
Non civium ardor prava jubentium, 
Non vultus instantis tyranni 
Mente quatit solida — 

Even before he commenced that career of philanthropy 
which has shed such a glory on his name, and covered his 
memory with so enduring a verdure, we find him sparing the 
life of an antagonist, clearly in his power, while in the act of 
an unprovoked and desperate assault upon his person. After he 
embraced the faith which he so well defended in his writings, 
and so beautifully illustrated in his life, we see him,— when 
undergoing the rigours of the Tower and of Newgate — 
solacing himself with the rewards of the future for the mise- 
ries of the present, and contending for conscientious freedom 
to all religious denominations as well as his own. His first 
published work expresses upon its -title-page, the boldness of 
his faith and the fortitude of his spirit;— "not fearing," says 
he, "the King's ivrath, having beheld the Majesty of Him 
who is invisible. '^ 

It is not my purpose to dwell, either for praise or for criti- 
cism, upon those distinctive views of a religious nature which 
Penn had imbibed, or the received dogmas of bis peculiar 



6 

tenets. I nm to consider him merely as a historical person- 
a2;e, and separating his theological opinions from his public 
career, to present his claims as a political philosopher to the 
calm judgment of impartial posterity. 

It is well known that England had been the scene of fierce 
religious strife, consequent upon the heats produced by the 
Lutheran Reformation. The Puiitans had obtained, by the 
aid of Cromwell, an ascendancy over the Catholics and Pro- 
testants; and they, in turn, submitted to the restoration of 
Charles II. and the Episcopal Church. The arm of the State 
became nerved against dissenters, all of whom were in turn 
exposed to the tender mercies of religious zeal. Whether 
Catholics, Puritans, or Churchmen, were at the head of Eng- 
lish affairs, the strong arm of the magistracy was deemed the 
only security against the ascendancy of error. From the 
blindness of sectarian rage, or under the plea of state neces- 
sity, the policy of each to the others, was marked by the same 
spirit of penal intolerance. 

No one who reads the history of those ages but must be 
struck with the perversity of our fallible nature, in wresting 
from Christianity the heavenly attributes of peace and good 
will to men, which it was graciously intended to confer, and 
transforming it into an engine of lamentable oppression and 
wo. The ten persecutions against the Christians, beginning 
with Nero, and ending with Dioclesian, were scarcely attend- 
ed with circumstances of .deeper atrocity than the miseries 
which different denominations of Christians have entailed 
upon each other. 

It was in a state of the public mind disturbed by a lively 
recollection of past convulsions, and agitated by mutual fears 
and apprehensions of future disquiet, that William Penn 
raised the standard oi universal toleration in matters of con- 



7 

science. He preached, persuaded, wrote and suffered tor tlic 
doctrine he espoused. 

During the reign of the 2d Charles, as well as his successor, 
nonconformity was visited by fine, imprisonment and other 
oppressive punishments. All dissenters, but especially the 
Roman Catholics and Quakers, were exposed to these inflic- 
tions. Persons of these two persuasions filled the prisons of 
England. The sufferings of the Friends from the peculiarity 
of their tenets, especially their repugnance to oaths, were 
greater than those of other Dissenters. With a view to miti- 
gate the rigours of their lot, he remonstrated with Parliament 
against the abuses of the Conventicle Act of 1670, and besought 
the sheriffs of London to protect the prisoners of Newgate 
from the tyranny of their keepers. The Royal Indulgence of 
1671, granted chiefly at the intercession of Penn, was the 
means of releasing 500 Quakers from the various prisons of 
the kingdom. His admirable work, bearing the modest title, 
"Persuasives to Moderation," led to the enlargement of 1200 
more who had been languishing in those receptacles of filth 
and depravity, the English jails, for several years. 

But it was not for his own sect alone, but in behalf of all 
mankind, that he brought forth the stores of his learning, and 
exerted his great abilities to establish the doctrine he main- 
tained. The lessons of history, the deductions of reason, the 
sentiments of wise and good men of all ages, the authority of 
Scripture, and the example of Christ and his apostles, were 
all employed to prove its consentaneousness with the growth 
of truth and the dictates of duty. "■ Force," he observes, 
" might make hypocrites, but would make no converts." In 
one passage he says, "mistakes about religion are known only 
to God." In a letter to the King of Poland, he quotes the 
memorable sentiment of his predecessor, Stephen, "I am king 
of men, not of consciences; king of bodies, but not of souls." 



8 

Having demonstrated in one of his dissertations, the absurdity 
of attempting to propagate faith by force, he denounces " the 
persecutor as a beast of prey, and a declared enemy to man- 
kind." 

The appeals which he made in behalf of the freedom of 
religious opinion and practice, are contained in many eloquent 
and erudite performances, which he occasionally issued, from 
an early to a late period of his life. These embody a mass 
of political philosophy which it would do well for mistaken 
enthusiasts, even of our own day, to ponder over and meditate. 

The principles upon which he proceeded, had their origin 
in the most enlarged ideas of human liberty. As a religious 
teacher, his mind, — before the civil affairs of West Jersey and 
Pennsylvania engaged his attention, — had been chiefly intent 
upon the establishment of religious toleration. But it will be 
seen, upon a closer view of his voluminous writings, that 
whether from this point he was induced to survey the general 
foundations of human government and civil abuses, — certain 
it is, he scans and discusses, in one of his earlier works, the 
whole fabric of social freedom. In his "England's Present 
Interest," published in his thirtieth year, he traces the liberty 
of English subjects to a period of English history antecedent 
to the Magna Charta. " Near 300 years," says he, " before 
Austin set his foot on English ground, the inhabitants had a 
good constitution. It came not in with him. Neither did it 
come in with Luther, nor was it to go out with Calvin. We 
were a free people by the creation of God, by the redemption 
of Christ, and by the careful provision of our never to be for- 
gotten, honourable ancestors; so that our claim to these Eng- 
lish privileges, rising higher than Protestantism, could never 
be justly invalidated on account of nonconformity to any tenet 
or fashion it might prescribe." 

In contending before a Committee of Parliament that the 



9 

Quakers ought not to be visited with those penalties which 
the law intended for Catholics only, he made this emphatic 
declaration: — " All laws have been let loose upon us, as if the 
design were not to reform but to destroy us. * * * But 
mark, I would not be mistaken. I am far from thinking it 
fit, because 1 exclaim against the injustice of whipping Qua- 
kers for Papists, that Papists should be whipped for their 
consciences. No: * * * we do not mean that any should 
take a fresh aim at them, or that they should come in our 
room; for we must give the liberty we ask, and cannot be 
false to our principles, though it were to relieve ourselves; — 
for we have good will to all men, and would have none suffer 
for a truly sober and conscientious dissent, on any hand." He 
protests, with great cogency of language, against the various 
charges, which, owing to the liberality of his sentiments, had 
been preferred against him; — that he was a Seminary, a Jesuit, 
an emissary of Rome, and in pay from the Pope; — asserting 
that he and his sect were of the same negative faith with the 
ancient Protestant church, and had never receded from one 
principle maintained by the first reformers of Germany and 
the martyrs of England. 

At the risk of tediousness in thus multiplying quotations, 
permit me lo add a few lines extracted from his " Persuasives 
to Moderation," as well for their truth as for the beauty and 
force of the simile. He is pleading for a renewal of the Royal 
Indulgence, which had been suspended. " The animosities," 
says he, " which by fresh accident falling in, have swelled to 
a mighty deluge, and such an one as had overwhelmed our 
former civil concord and security." " And pardon me," he 
continues, " if I say, I cannot see that these waters are likely 
to assuage till this olive branch of indulgence be some way or 
other restored. The waves will still cover our earth, and a 

B 



10 

spot of land will hardly be found in this, our glorious isle, for 
a great number of useful people to set a quiet foot upon. And 
to pursue the allegory, what was the ark itself, but a most apt 
and lively emblem of toleration? a kind of natural temple of 
indulgence, in which we find two of every living creature 
living together." 

It was dilBcult for persons educated in the system of exclu- 
sion and intolerance, to conceive of the sincerity of a teacher 
who contended for equal privileges to all. But the public 
mind is at length awakened to the appeals of truth and reason. 
Through his agenc}', many persecuted Presbyterians w^ere 
recalled from exile; forfeited estates were restored to their 
owners; Catholics were released from prisons and exonerated 
from heavy fines; — and to his labours at last it was eminently 
owing, that many of the great principles of religious liberty 
were declared and established by act of Parliament. 

This apostle of the rights of humanity received, during 
many years of his life, but a poor requital for his pains and 
labours. He was often the inmate of a jail for months together. 
He felt, in succession, the evils resulting from a temporary 
deprivation of his province; the loss of his friends; his good 
name; and his fortune. But in the extremity of his darkest 
hour, when in retirement from the heats of party, and when, 
to use his own language, he had become " a man of sorrows, 
and a reproach to his familiars," he retained the friendship 
and experienced the sympathy of such men as Tillotson, 
Locke and Sidney. Sustained by the consciousness of inno- 
cence, and of that mighty arm upon which he leaned, the sun- 
light of better fortunes beamed through the thick clouds of suf- 
fering. He lived admired, respected and loved, and descended 
into the grave revered as a learned, a great, and a good man; — 
and honoured as the champion of human rights, and the bene- 



11 

factor of two hemispheres. His death was mourned by men 
of eminence and piety of every creed, who saw in his charac- 
ter the varied accomplishments of the scholar united not only 
with the rarest endowments of the mind and understanding, 
but with those expansive charities and heaven-born affections 
which dignify and ennoble our nature. " His memory," said 
the Memorial of his Meeting at Reading, '' will be valued by 
the wise and blessed by the just." 

It was the peculiar and happy lot of Pennsylvania to have 
such a man for its Founder; — to have the seeds of human 
liberty planted deep in its virgin soil — to have a political 
constitution and code of laws framed by one whose spirit of 
freedom had grown under the fetters which bound him; — and 
whose spirit of benevolence, had been nursed and expanded 
beneath the hard hand of religious oppression. 

The penal rigours against all Dissenters, and especially the 
Quakers, continued with little intermission or abatement, till 
the enactment of the Toleration Act, after the accession of 
William and Mary. Such were the variety and magnitude of 
the evils under which they groaned, that many began to look 
to remote resions for a shelter from that storm which beat too 
violently in their native country. 

The active and comprehensive genius of Penn had already 
anticipated their desires. He had accepted a charter of Penn- 
sylvania from Charles H. and invited the persecuted noncon- 
formists, and such as were desirous of change, to accompany 
him thither, for the enjoyment of more benignant laws amid 
the solitudes of the Trans-Atlantic West. He had sought in 
the new world, a theatre to exemplify the wisdom and feasi- 
bility of the doctrines he had promulgated in the old; and 



12 

while he conferred the means of happiness upon a distant 
colony, to give to Europe the model of a government found- 
ed upon justice, benevolence, and the rights of man. 

Before tlie first ship-load of emigrants had been freighted 
for Pennsylvania, he issued a Declaration, making liberty, in 
its largest sense, an essential article of the colonial plan. 

In England, he simply contended for religious toleration. 
As the friend of peace and social repose, he refused to assail 
the legal preeminence of the English Church. But in his 
Province, not being deterred by the apprehension of revolu- 
tionary disquiet, his views were disclosed in their native ex- 
pansion. He proclaimed not a mere toleration, which ad- 
mitted the prerogatives of a dominant establishment, but a 
positive equality of religious faith and opinion. 

It was this great and cardinal principle, that every man has 
an inherent right to worship God according to the dictates 
of his conscience, more than any other, that lay nearest the 
heart of the Founder of Pennsylvania. Having disseminated 
this grand truth in a great variety of learned and ingenious 
publications, he sought to impress upon the minds of his co- 
lonists, that the right which he asserted, lying at the very 
base of freedom, should be made inviolate by positive law, 
as it was inalienable and imperishable in its nature. He 
therefore first declared it to be essential and fundamental; 
it was afterwards incorporated into the Great Law of 1682; 
was solemnly reenacted; and finally became a part of the 
perpetual laws and Constitution of the Province. 

It is beside the present purpose to inquire how the germs 
of those seeds, which were scattered, at the beginning, in Penn- 
sylvania, came to be transplanted into the other colonies at 
the Revolution. The policy of Penn had been the policy of 
two only of the thirteen colonies, which united their forces to 



13 

overthrow the English supremacy; — of Lord Baltimore in 
Maryland, and of Williams and Coddington in Rhode Island. 
But the colonial platform in Pennsylvania was more broad 
and comprehensive than either. Without detracting a tittle 
from the merit of either of these eminent benefactors of their 
race, we may leave to the philosophic lustorian, and the in- 
formed judgment of impartial posterity, the respective claim 
of each to the honour of fostering those distinguishing and 
fundamental ideas which enter into our present system of go- 
vernment. 

One of the great efforts of Penn's labours in Europe, was 
the removal of tests, as the necessary attribute of social free- 
dom. Upon the faith of his first Declaration, and the laws 
enacted in pursuance of it, Pennsylvania became the resort 
and asylum of the oppressed of every creed in Europe. It 
partook of the nature of the ark, he described. It was the re- 
sidence of the Episcopalian, and the sanctuary to which the 
Presbyterian, the Catholic and the Jew, fled for refuge. 

The Constitution of Pennsylvania, as a State, adopted the 
principles, and almost the language, of Penn's first Declaration 
in regard to liberty of conscience. The first great act of the 
Nation, as an independent political society, — I mean the Con- 
stitution of the United States — was to remove for ever the 
necessity of religious tests. That sacred Charter was framed 
by a Convention, who assembled and deliberated in Philadel- 
phia. We may not conjecture how far the influence of the 
genius loci,^of a spot consecrated by the universality of its 
freedom, — may have operated upon their deliberations; but 
we cannot doubt that the ideas of liberty which this colony 
diffused, cooperating with the spirit which the revolution 
itself had engendered, opened the minds of its framers to the 
reception of those more catholic principles of human deniza- 



14 

tion, which leave to all the undisturbed fruition of its bless- 
ings. This is the vital and distinguishing spirit of the Ame- 
rican Revolution. It is the security and support of all the 
rest;— it is the keystone of the arch which upholds the temple 
of true and equal liberty; — of that arch which sustains the 
complicated and massive edifice of the Union itself. 

Vessels for the promised land were soon loaded with emi- 
grants, whither Penn followed a few months after, and land- 
ed at New Castle, from the good ship Welcome, on this 
day 1G2 years ago. Here let us forget the scene which now 
surrounds us, of a stately and luxurious city, and dwell upon 
that which opened upon the adventurers. The Schuylkill 
was separated from the Delaware, not by edifices, the abodes 
of opulence and taste, but by a dreary and almost untrodden 
expanse of forest. A few worthy Swedes, Dutch and English, 
were thinly scattered along the margin of the Delaware. All 
else was dense and unbroken wilderness, the coverts of wild 
beasts, or the home of the wilder Indian. 

I will not dwell upon the circumstances of that little settle- 
ment, nor point you to the caves which protected many of 
the colonists from the inclemency of the ensuing winter. I 
will not harrow the feelings with cases of individual suffering, 
of death by tlie raging of disease on the voyage, or of the 
hardships, discomforts and privations, of their subsequent lot. 
It is scarcely fancy which depicts among that primitive band, 
many an eye turned to heaven in thanksgiving for their pre- 
servation and safe retreat from the persecutions of " woful 
Europe," while streaming in tender i-ecollection of their na- 
tive land, and of the kindred they had forsaken. But I may 
not omit to call your attention, if not to the just purchase 
which Penn made of his lands from the simple inhabitants of 



15 

the country, at least to the Treaty concluded between them, 
for a close and abiding friendship. 

The spreading elm tree, which stood but a few years ago 
in Kensington, marked the spot of that memorable compact. 
Penn taught mankind, in the circumstances and consequences 
of that Treaty, a beautiful moral lesson, the observance of 
which, in succeeding times, might have prevented much cala- 
mity and outrage, and no little national dishonour. He and 
his colonists entered the crowd of grim warriors assembled 
beneath tlie wide branches of the elm, and there, unprotected 
by soldiers and unarmed themselves, held out to them the 
hand of peace. The simplicity of the act, the mild counte- 
nances, and apparent sincerity of the strangers, opened the 
heart and subdued the fierce spirit of the savage. The ex- 
tended pledge was taken, and promises of perpetual friendship 
were mutually exchanged. 

The plighted faith of the parties to this compact, was never 
violated. They lived in close neighbourhood and fraternal 
amity with each other, for more than half a century. During 
that period, no complaint of infidelity was heard, and not a 
drop of blood was shed in Pennsylvania. The kind ofiices of 
the colonists were acknowledged by timely presents of corn 
and game from the natives, and by every mark of attachment 
and regard. The story of this Treaty, and of its fruits, pre- 
sents the most pleasing page in modern history. On this 
page, Voltaire and the Abbe Raynal have delighted to dwell, 
in strains of the most rapturous panegyric. The narrative, 
while it elucidates the character of our ancestors, determines 
the moral capacities of uncivilized man. It exhibits the In- 
dian, not as destitute of moral faculties and virtuous instincts; 
not as an incarnate demon or a brute, who delights only in 
treachery and muj-der; but though a heathen, though a being 



16 

in a state of moral infancy, yet as capable of cherishing some 
of the best affections of humanity — the sentiments of consis- 
tent friendshijD and enduring gratitude. This problem was 
solved by our ancestors, in their connexion with a race which 
were the great fathers of the North American Indians; — the 
tradition of whose conquests, and the fame of whose valour, 
had reached beyond the Mississippi ; — in fine, with a race which 
in their previous intercourse with the Swedes and Dutch, had 
displayed many of the traits of fell and truculent savages. 
The process was simple, — that of peace-breathing conduct and 
consistent kindness; of undeviating truth and perfect since- 
rity. The benevolent Robinson and Elliott, of Massachusetts, 
saw the fatal mistakes of a different course of action, and de- 
plored with bitterness, its sad fruits and irretrievable mis- 
chiefs. — But if it be asked, whether this memorable lesson of 
the good Onas, was productive of its natural effects upon our 
subsequent policy, we must burn with shame at the answer. 
It is an unhappy truth, that the successors of Penn forgot the 
wise precept he had taught them. Jealousy and encroach- 
ment on our side, provoked resistance, outrage and violence 
on the other: until after the commission of many crimes, and 
the endurance of many sufferings, these harmless friends, if 
not kind benefactors of our ancestors, retired from the con- 
fines of Pennsylvania to the western wilds. But it may be 
hoped, that the precious results of Penn's philanthropic disco- 
very may not be lost to mankind, but that it may yet be ap- 
plied to the redemption of the national faith and honour. That 
great assemblage of Indian nations which are now settled, by 
the policy of the Federal Government, on the western banks of 
the Mississippi, affords the last opportunity, which a cold and 
selfish policy has permitted, to illustrate the wisdom, as well 
as benignity, of this example. 



17 

The Proprietary, having enacted his laws and settled his 
Indian relations, proceeded to mark the plan of his future city. 
In the second article of his "Conditions and Concessions," 
executed in England on the 11th July, 1681, Penn limited 
the area of the town to the proportion of 200 acres out of each 
10,000 sold. But in an order to his commissioners in the 
October following, he directed them "to lay out 10,000 acres 
for a town." Holme, the Surveyor General of the Province, 
proceeded to execute this order in June, 1682, but he was 
anticipated by the arrival of Penn, who, at the instance of the 
colonists, agreed to diminish its extent. As finally agreed, 
Philadelphia was to extend from the Delaware to the Schuyl- 
kill river, and from the line of Vine street on the north, to 
Cedar street on the south, including an area of about 1200 
acres. The streets were laid down with great uniformity in 
the plan, slightly varied from in practice, with the distances 
from each other which have since been preserved. The four 
open squares are delineated on the original map as they now 
exist, for the public health and recreation. This model was 
nearly perfect in conception, and will bear an advantageous 
comparison with the irregular, winding, and narrow thorough- 
fares of the other great towns of the Union. Dean Prideaux 
has referred to Philadelphia, as presenting no slight similarity 
in design to the ancient city of Babylon, which, it may be 
remembered, was almost as famous for its beauty, as for the 
crimes which led to its downfall. After describing the cele- 
brated metropolis of Chaldea, he observes, " much according 
to this model, hath William Penn, the Quaker, laid out the 
ground for his city of Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, and were 
it all built, according to that design, it would be the fairest 
city in all America, and not much behind any other in the 
whole world." 
c 



18 

When the town received from Penn its Charter for a city 
in 1701, its proportions and dimensions were defined as 
they now exist. The sagacity of the Founder had been 
shown, not only in the rectangular intersection of the streets, 
but in their width, distances from each other, and in the va- 
rious arrangements for health, cleanliness and beauty. It is 
not easy to estimate the value of these regulations to the future 
well-being of our metropolis, without a reference to older and 
more populous communities. If an inquirer will look into a 
recent official report on London, Liverpool, and other English 
towns, he may see in their sickening details, the nature of 
some of those evils which it will be our happy lot to escape. 

But it has been objected, that the circumscribed limits of 
Philadelphia, as set forth in the Charter of 1701, have proved ^ 

injurious to her prosperity. Whatever may be the defects of 
that instrument, we cannot without injustice, charge upon 
Penn, the number of independent interests which have grown 
up around her. We have seen that his own judgment was in 
favour of a municipal territory of 10,000 acres, and that he 
reduced it to nearly its present extent of 1200 acres, at the 
desire of the inhabitants. But to whom is the blame properly 
imputable, when the population had grown beyond these boun- 
daries, of conferring upon their inhabitants distinct municipal 
rights? The Charter of Southwark as a district, the earliest 
of these separate municipalities, was granted in 1794, by the 
Legislature of Pennsylvania, when experience had suggested 
the probable magnitude, and the commercial and manufac- 
turing destiny of Philadelphia.* The corporation of the 
Northern Liberties, next in order, received its grant in 1803, 
from the same source, as well as the other bodies politic which 

* Act for Streets, &c. passed in 17G'2; incorporated in 1794. (Vide 
Smith's Laws, 1 Vol. 248, and 3 Vol. 130.) 



19 

now comprise our large and expanding population. It is easy 
to throw the censure of present mistakes upon the absent and 
the past. But as these separate communities, with their inde- 
pendent jurisdictions, are proved to be an evil injurious to the 
common welfare, it is better and more magnanimous, to pro- 
vide an obvious remedy. 

The venerable Charter of Philadelphia, which has so well 
advanced the greatness of an exiguous surface, may throw its 
aegis over a wider territory. It should extend its parental 
embrace to the fine possessions of Fairmount, Girard College, 
and Lemon Hill, which, lying beyond its present corporate 
limits, may, at some future day, be exposed to the interested 
policy of a step-mother, who has it always in her power, to be 
more insidious in her unkindness than a stranger. By greater 
enlargement, each important point of an increasing commerce 
may be improved, and the extended lines of our two no. 
ble rivers, be rendered tributary to the wealth and gran- 
deur of one undivided metropolis. Ideal landmarks will be 
removed which weaken or distract enterprise, and tend to 
hinder that social fusion which springs from popular sympa- 
thy, identity of interest, and the sense of a common union. 
Nor can it be doubted that a plan may be devised which, while 
it confers the security of a general police, will reconcile the 
demands of sectional as well as private justice with the para- 
mount claims of the public prosperity. 

But — to return from this digression — if sagacity was dis- 
played in the economy of the town, the social organization of 
the Province has even higher claims upon our regard. Its 
political frame-work was modelled upon those principles of 
society, which, Penn had conceived, were fitted to develope the 
more exalted faculties of man. He had imbibed the opinion 
that mankind were governed too much, and that numerous 



20 

regulations and severe laws only invited their violation. 
Every part of his colonial plan recognised the people as the 
guardians of the common welfare. Popular liberty and re- 
publican forms were maintained in every department of the 
administration. An anecdote is related, which displays the 
simplicity of the times and the republican tendencies of the 
people. In the year 1685, three years after the first settle- 
ment, Allen published an Almanac, in which he ventured to 
give the title of Lord Penn to the Founder. The Council 
were so offended, that they sent personally for Allen and his 
printer, Bradford, and ordered them to blot out of the Alma- 
nac the unauthorized appellation. — The different branches of 
his simple polity were intended to preserve justice, and the 
laws to encourage morality. He seems to have reduced to 
practice the political Romance of Harrington, and proved by 
the order of his province and the happiness of his people, that 
the Oceana was not a delusion. Some of the older writers 
have seen in the condition of early Pennsylvania, — in the ge- 
neral peace and prosperity, — in the fraternal kindness which 
subsisted between the colonists and Indians, — in the mild pe- 
nalties and comparative exemption from crime, — an image of 
the golden age, as depicted by the poets. 

But he encouraged no Eutopian dream of impracticable 
perfection. He knew that good government did not always 
make good men, and that ignorance and idleness were the 
parents of a numerous and vicious progeny. In order to 
guard these avenues of misery and crime, he established 
schools, and recommended that youth, at the age of twelve, 
be required to be put to trades, agriculture, or some useful 
employment. Tiie means of sound mental and moral educa- 
tion were amply provided. " Men of wisdom and virtue," 
says he, "because they descend not with worldly inherit- 
ances, must be carefully propagated by a virtuous education 



21 

of youth, for which after ages will owe more to the care of 
founders and the successive magistracy, than to their parents 
for their private patrimony." 

In the punishment of crimes he was lenient and merciful. 
The English law, as it then stood, was distinguished for its 
sanguinary rigour. Death was the general avenger of its vio- 
lations. But Penn admitted into his code an element which 
did not enter into the legislation of Europe. He looked to 
reforination as one of the great ends of retributive justice. 
In pursuance of this idea, he exempted from the infliction of 
death about two hundred offences, which were capitally pu- 
nished by the English law, and reserved it for murder only. 
The improvements which he introduced into the system of 
prisons, kept pace with the meliorations of the penal code. 
He ordered the jails of the Province to be workhouses for the 
prisoners, to serve the purposes of punishment in promoting 
wholesome contrition and ultimate amendment. 

In the distribution of good and evil, in the affairs of this 
world, it is sometimes decreed that afiliction and calamity are 
to be the messengers and source of our greatest blessings. 
The English persecutions of the seventeenth century, were 
the means of bringing to light the disgusting depravity and 
unimagined horrors of the English prisons. These recepta- 
cles, therefore, became an object of lively attention in Penn- 
sylvania. Many of the colonists, with their venerated leader, 
being made acquainted, by long endurance, with their mani- 
fold evils, became the best instruments for remedying their 
defects. From this cause originated the Prison Society of 
Pennsylvania — the earliest known association in the world 
for such an object — whose silent but sedulous philanthropy 
has been the means of carrying the idea of a prison ivork- 
shop, first suggested by Penn, to the most beneficial results. 
It has matured a system of Penitentiary discipline, upon the 



22 

plan of separation, which is now the admiration of our own 
country and of Europe. We have witnessed the advent of 
gentlemen to these shores as commissioners, from the greatest 
nations of the old world, to examine and report to their re- 
spective governments, upon the character and effects of our 
Penitentiary system, — a system which, having originated and 
being matured in Pennsylvania, is properly and exclusively 
our own. Thus, by the unobtrusive labours of our own phi- 
lanthropists, whose rule of action is esse qiiam videri, Penn- 
sylvania has the honour of giving to mankind an institution 
of the highest consequence, and one which is destined to 
confer the most permanent benefits. 

In the legal government of the colony, though the whole 
theory rested upon the equality of human rights, and their as- 
sertion by the popular will; though justice and kindness go- 
verned the colonial intercourse with the Indians; though the 
penal law was divested of the sanguinary features of the En- 
glish code; yet the Founder never failed to impress and ex- 
emplify the sentiment, that "the way of the transgressor is 
hard." The Province presented, in regard to crimes, a fa- 
vourable contrast with all the other colonies, where severer 
punishments obtained. Penn distinguished between lenity 
and inefficiency on the one hand, and between liberty and li- 
centiousness on the other. He was as prompt to hinder any 
organized opposition to law, as he was ready to avenge its 
perpetration. To guard against popular disturbance, as well 
as to bring the lawless to punishment, he felt the necessity of 
providing an adequate police. He somewhere emphatically 
tells us, that ''weakness in the rulers leads to mutiny and re- 
bellion in the people." So sensible was he of the importance 
of subduing at the outset, the least manifestation of a refrac- 
tory or insubordinate spirit, that he offered his jjersonal aid 



23 

to quell a riotous outbreak in the neighbouring province of 
New Jersey. The insurgents proceeded so far as to have re- 
course to arms. Though the tumult was suppressed before 
his arrival, yet he despatched a missive to the authorities 
there, in which he expresses, with firmness and decision, his 
views of the measures which the emergency demanded. " It 
would be hard," he wrote, according to his biographer, Clark- 
son, "to find temper enough to balance extremes; for he 
knew not what punishment those rioters did not deserve. * * 
If lenitives would not do, coercives should be tried; for 
though men would naturally begin with the former, yet wis- 
dom had often sanctioned the latter, as remedies, which, how- 
ever, were never to be adopted but with regret." 

There is nothing in the example and sentiments of the 
Founder; nothing in the history of the colony; to sanction 
the idea that the administration was feeble, though the puni- 
tive system was mild. The penal economy seemed to pro- 
ceed upon the idea, that mild laws, executed with uniformity 
and certainty, were better than a rigorous code administered 
with laxity. "Criminals," says Lownes, "avoided Pennsyl- 
vania, because they preferred the 7nsk of being hanged in 
other States, to the certainty of being confined to the Peni- 
tentiary cells of this." Those writers who would attribute to 
misgovernment in the past, the misrule, errors, or licentious- 
ness of a recent period, know little of our history. An admi- 
nistration of the laws such as it was the care of our ancestors 
to enforce; a constabulary suited to our crowded numbers; 
and an union of the various jurisdictions into one munici- 
pality; would enable Philadelphia to retrieve that character 
for submissive obedience and decorous order which she once 
so eminently deserved. 

Philadelphia was the pride and joy of its Founder. He had 



24 

visited the spot where it stands before the trees which cover- 
ed its surface, were removed by the sturdy hand of the wood- 
chopper. He witnessed the erection of the first hundred 
buildings, for the accommodation of his houseless, but ho- 
noured associates. To his friends at home, he drew a most 
pleasing picture of the site of the town, of its salubrity and 
beauty, and its advantageous position for trade and commerce. 
To this town of his affections, v/here dwelt many of his for- 
mer companions in prison, now voluntary exiles in his pro- 
vince for conscience sake; — the repositories of his cherished 
principles, his tried counsellors and friends; — to that small 
assemblage of simple and unpretending dwellings, comprising 
for the most part, religious refugees of all names and distinc- 
tions; — to that spot, he looked for the realization of all his 
hopes of a virtuous government and a happy people. His 
apostrophe to Philadelphia, in one of his letters, is touchingly 
simple and beautiful: "And thou, Philadelphia," he writes, 
" the virgin settlement of this Province, named before thou 
wert born, what love, what care, what service, and what tra- 
vail, has there been to bring thee forth and preserve thee from 
such as would abuse and defile thee! * * My soul prays to 
God for thee, that thou mayest stand in the day of trial, that 
thy children may be blessed of the Lord, and thy people 
saved by his power. My love to thee has been great, and the 
remembrance of thee affects my heart and my eye. The God 
of eternal strength keep and preserve thee to his glory and 
thy peace!" We may reverently hope that these solemn ad- 
jurations may not be without their effect upon the future 
peace and prosperity of the City, since the past has been sig- 
nally crowned with blessings. 

The advancement of the Colony of Pennsylvania, in num- 
bers, wealth, and the personal consideration of its members. 



25 

was without example in the colonial history of this country. 
It may be remembered, that with the exception of Georgia, it 
was the last colony planted by the English in North America. 
The rapidity with which emigrants flocked to Pennsylvania, its 
unexampled prosperity and internal quiet, were chiefly attribu- 
ted to the superiority of its laws; — to the political and religious 
freedom of its Constitution. All the early writers agree in 
ascribing the highest praises to both. Edmund Burke, one of 
the greatest minds of the last century, remarks, in his phi- 
losophical survey of the colony, " But what crowned all 
was that noble Charter of Privileges by which Penn made 
the inhabitants as free as any people in the world, and which 
has drawn such vast numbers of so many different persuasions, 
and such various countries, to put themselves under the pro- 
tection of his laws. He made the most perfect freedom, both 
civil and religious, the basis of his establishment; and this has 
done more towards the settling of the Province and the set- 
tling of it in a strong and permanent manner than the wisest 
regulations could have done on any other plan." Anderson, 
who wrote in 1760, speaks, in his History of Commerce, to 
the same effect, observing, that " Although so lately planted, it 
is thought, at this day, to have more white people in it than 
any other colony on all the continent of North America, New 
England alone excepted." 

Philadelphia was founded about sixty years after New 
York, and about half a century later than Boston. In a few 
years, she outstripped these older and enterprising sisters;* 
became the metropolis of the United Colonies; and after the 
revolution, the capital of the Nation. Her central position; 
the general intelligence of the people; the superior tone of 

* Vide Appendix, No. 2. 
D 



26 

society; and the unusual advancement which had been made 
in the practical arts, pointed out Philadelphia, as the ultima 
thule of American life. The private correspondence as well 
as the official papers of Washington and other public actors in 
the revolution, attest her indispensable importance during the 
progress of the conflict, as the centre of art, intelligence and 
wealth. 

At an early day, it was her lot to attain a standing for 
solidity of pecuniary means, and a high repute for commer- 
cial honour. The citizens at large were more remarkable 
for their frugality and competent estates, for their devotion 
to public and private charity, than the possession of affluent 
fortunes. But this individual wealth, moderate as it was, 
being widely, even generally diffused, formed an aggregate 
capital which was enough to establish, upon a firm basis, a 
solid pecuniary reputation. 

But the simplicity of primitive manners faded apace before 
the influx of riches, obtained by more adventurous commerce. 
Men of larger property multiplied, and in more modern days 
many private estates might be pointed to, in the city and State, 
much exceeding a million of dollars, and a few above five mil- 
lions, amassed in Philadelphia. Our respected fellow towns- 
man, Dr. Mease, in his excellent Picture of Philadelphia, 
informs us that of the former debt of the United States, now 
happily extinguished, amounting in 1824 to above 90 millions 
of dollars, 43^ millions were held in Philadelphia. 

Owing to these causes, the practical and ornamental arts 
have been cultivated with unusual assiduity and success. The 
exact sciences — the pure as well as the practical — have received 
such a momentum, from the tendencies and tastes of our fore- 
fathers, as to predominate, in the efforts of the mind, over the 
lighter exercitations of elegant literature. To this we are 



27 

indebted for that spirit of utility, which has placed Pennsylva- 
nia in the van of internal improvements in this country. The 
turnpike road leading from, this city to Lancaster, was the 
earliest project of that nature in the Union. The first canal 
undertaken in the United States,— except that through the 
Dismal Swamp of Virginia, — is the Union Canal of Pennsyl- 
vania, which unites the waters of the Schuylkill and Susque- 
hanna; — an enterprise which was unhappily delayed about a 
century after its feasibility and importance were suggested by 
the Founder. The number and permanence of the bridges, 
turnpike roads, canals, and rail-ways stretching over and in- 
tersecting our diversified and bountiful region, are unequalled 
by any State in the Union, and they have employed a sum of 
money, surpassing in magnitude that of any of her sisters. 

Agriculture was quickened and encouraged in its best ope- 
rations, by the diffusive and intelligent aid of Societies formed 
to advance and improve it, by good roads constructed at an 
early period, and by other fi\cilities for bringing to market the 
produce of labour. The effects of these upon the husbandman 
may be read in the commodious barns, neat fences, and culti- 
vated fields, which give to the State such a smiling aspect of 
substantial comfort and overflowing abundance. And as if 
the bounty of heaven had cooperated with the wisdom of our 
early pioneers, in showering upon her the most signal bless- 
ings, the wealth of Pennsylvania does not lie alone on the 
luxuriant surface, but the most rugged and uninviting tracts 
of her domain, teem in exhaustless profusion with mineral 
wealth. The Province, in 1683, contained less than one hun- 
dred houses. These were inhabited by a band of religious ex- 
iles, who are summarily described by their cotemporaries as 
men of property and character. This small settlement has 
grown to be a State, containing nearly 2,000,000 of inhabitants, 



28 

and possessing an aggregate amount of wealth exceeding 
2,100,000,000 of dollars, estimated to produce 200,000,000 
of dollars annually.* Immense regions, teeming in close 
proximity, with coal and iron, yet remain untouched by the 
hand of the miner, and new fields of these minerals are con- 
stantly opening to the eye of enterprise and discovery. Eng- 
land and Wales are stated to export 30,000,000 of tons of coal, 
per annum, while the exports of Pennsylvania, whose mine- 
ral wealth is believed to be equal to both combined, do not 
exceed the one-fifteenth of that amount. The annual pro- 
duct of the Anthracite coal mines of Pennsylvania has increased 
within the brief period of twenty-four years, from 365 tons, 
to 1,600,000, for the year lS44.t It should be remem- 
bered that the settlement of the colony does not reach to a high 
antiquity; that these mineral tracts are newly redeemed from 
primeval wiidness; and that artificial communications, as well 
as the operation of mining, are of recent introduction into this 
country. Time is required to scale the rocky ramparts, and 
overcome the mountainous walls, with which nature has de- 
lighted to guard these treasures. But art and enterprise are 
on foot to dislodge them from their fastnesses, and each day 
is adding new monuments of their triumphs. 

But, Gentlemen, vain would be all the glories of the public 
prospects, if shadowed by the cloud of public dishonour! It 
was one earnest recommendation of the Founder to his chil- 
dren, and the desire of his own heart, " to owe nothing^ 
This sentiment is sanctified in the affections of every legiti- 
mate child of Pennsylvania. In pursuance of its spirit the 
obligations of the State have now been provided for by the 
Legislature, and every consideration connected with the past, 

* Vide Appendix, No. 3. I Vide Appendix, No. 4. 



29 

or relating to the future, every motive of justice, policy and 
patriotism, concur to recommend their speedy and complete 
fulfilment. Owing to the unhappy failure of the greatest of 
our financial institutions, attracting into its vast vortex nearly 
all the lesser establishments of the State, a void was created 
which crippled the public resources and threatened to involve 
us in one universal ruin. Many families, accustomed to opu- 
lence, were reduced to destitution. The great works of the 
State, in which the public debt was expended, being 
so unfinished as to prove unproductive, formed rather a 
drain and a burden, than a means of profit or relief. But 
thanks to the bounty of Providence and the energy of our 
people, the thick gloom has been penetrated, and a brighter 
day is at hand. Pennsylvania will remember the injunction 
of her Founder. She will stand vindicated before the world, 
of the charge of degeneracy, and transmit the fair escutcheon 
of good faith which she derived from her ancestors, undefaced 
and unspotted to her descendants. We may fondly anticipate 
the sunshine of prosperity and true glory, which, upon the 
redemption of her faith, will dawn upon our beloved Common- 
wealth. Each hill and valley of her territory, made glad by 
the enlightened liberality of expended millions, will gratefully 
yield up those hidden stores, which nature with so prodigal a 
hand, has poured into its bosom. The public bounty will be 
scarcely less magical in its effect upon these wild and unpro- 
mising regions, than the potent rod of the prophet upon the 
arid rock, at whose stroke the overflowing waters gushed 
forth in the desert. 

But, Gentlemen, it is not to riches we are chiefly to look 
for our future greatness. We may be thankfully content with 
the local position of Pennsylvania, her mineral stores, and 



30 

agricultural capacities. These all are secure. We have a City 
most fairly adorned, and a State of which we have many rea- 
sons to be proud, for which we have every motive to be grate- 
ful. But the physical surface and material appearances, how- 
ever imposing and beautiful, do not satisfy the eye which is 
seeking for something better. As Pennsylvanians, with the 
heritage of the principles of William Penn, as one member of 
a great family whose form of government depends for its pre- 
servation upon individual and private virtue, the perpetuity of 
whose union is intertwined and identified with the moral pa- 
triotism of its constituent parts, we are to look to higher 
sources of ambition. 

The noble charities which, at an early day, gave to Penn- 
sylvania a name in Europe; the pure virtues and wise max- 
ims of our ancestors; are worthy of our filial care and devoted 
cultivation. That liberality of spirit which our early laws 
engendered and difi'used, made Pennsylvania the home of a 
Christian, and an enlightened tolerance. They made it a 
home for the oppressed of all nations. They have conducted 
it in safety from the helplessness of infancy, to its present 
maturity and power. We are called upon by every conside- 
ration of pride in a virtuous ancestry; by the associations of 
this hallowed spot; by the call of patriotism; to cultivate 
those seeds of moral virtue and enlightened freedom which 
were scattered at the first planting in our native soil. 

The City in which we live was founded by the great and 
good man, whose birth and landing we this day commemo- 
rate. It was the place of his residence, and the scene of 
many of those labours which have given celebrity to his 
name. It was the theatre of the first Congress who assem- 
bled from all the colonies to deliberate upon their common 



31 

grievances, and to devise the mode of their common redress. 
It was the theatre of that illustrious Assembly, who, within 
these walls, convened to ponder the dread alternative of resist- 
ance or subjection! Though they sat with closed doors, yet on 
such a spot as this, it requires but little aid from fancy to look 
round upon the venerable sages who considered the question 
at issue. Here, amid the antique furniture and massive wain- 
scot, which, preserved with pious care, are still visible around 
us, in their original state, we may picture — in the stately dress 
of a past age — the reverend and majestic persons who filled 
this consecrated chamber. Here sat Hancock upon an emi- 
nence, contemplating with a resolute but settled brow, and an 
expression of intense interest, five persons who were ap- 
proaching the Chair. Below him sat Charles Thomson, the 
secretary of the body, diligently, but with emotion, recording 
the business as it proceeded. There sat Lee, Samuel Adams, 
Rutledge, Hopkinson, Rush, Carroll, Hopkins, Rodney, Mid- 
dleton, and their associates, all evincing, in their fixed gaze 
and compressed lips, the absorbing interest of the present bu- 
siness. Whatever of contrast or variety was observable in 
the countenances of the assembly, every pulse seemed to beat 
in unison, and all hearts seemed prepared for some fearful ex- 
tremity ! 

But what mighty event, either announced or unexpressed, 
disturbs the tranquillity of the convention? Who are the five 
persons now advancing in front of the president? The assem- 
bly is silent with expectation. Jefferson, and, standing beside 
or behind him, John Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Living- 
ston, bring to the table a paper, which is slowly and delibe- 
rately read. The contents of that paper are seen in the unal- 
terable purpose, written, in deep characters, upon the faces of 



32 

the committee. Its consideration is postponed, then calmly 
debated, and at last, with deliberate solemnity, adopted. The 
paper complained of birth-rights outraged and charters vio- 
lated, of faithless desertion and perfidious wrongs. It spoke 
of separation from one empire, and proclaimed the erection of 
another. That paper was our first National Charter — the De- 
claration of Independence. All the assembled patriots, save 
one, gave it their cordial support, and early, if not immediate, 
signature.* 

From the steps of this venerable edifice that immortal In- 
strument was read to the people, and went forth to the utter- 
most parts of the earth. 

After achieving the Independence they had declared, the 
patriots of the Revolution, returned to Philadelphia to form a 
second and equally endurable charter of our liberties; — I mean 
the Constitution of the United States. Over that eminent 
convention sat the venerated father of his country, and con- 
ducted to the chair by a son of Pennsylvania, the great finan- 
cier of the Revolution. Here, in Philadelphia, was celebrated 
that grand jubilee of the nation which followed the ratifica- 
tion, by the States, of the Federal Charter. Here we may 
recognise the familiar scenes of one, whom the poetic enthu- 
siasm of Byron did not unduly exalt, when, intent upon pre- 
senting to the admiration of the world the embodiment of 
imaginary or peerless virtue, he referred to — 

" the name of Washington, 

To make men blush there was but one." 

Here, in succession, dwelt John Adams and Thomas Jeffer- 
son, and here assembled the first Congress and Senate under 
the Constitution. 

* Vide Appendix, No. 5. 



33 

The epochs of 1644, of 1682, of 1776, and 1787, should 
be inscribed in letters of living light upon the historic scroll. 
They bring with them reminiscences of great and glorious 
events, which should never fade from the memory of Phi- 
ladelphia. They are so many mementoes to you, gentlemen, 
and to us all, of the classic ground on which we dwell, and 
call upon us, in tones of the deepest eloquence, to cherish 
those virtues which blest it from the first! 



APPENDIX. 



NOTE 1, P. 3. 

The Anniversary of the Landing h:is been observed on the 24th 
October, ever since the year 1824, when that day was assigned as 
the proper one, by " The Society for Commemorating the Landing 
of WiUiam Penn," — of which Mr. Du Ponceau was a leading mem- 
ber, if the suggestion did not, in fact, originate with him. As it was 
the special duty of that Society, which was formed to keep alive the 
memory of the day, to ascertain the pro^r one, every body acqui- 
esced in the time it selected, without examination. In fact, with a 
view to avoid mistake, it appointed a Committee to ascertain the 
precise period of the event, and upon the report of this Committee 
the 24th was appointed. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 
which was formed in the following year, (1825,) has adopted the 
same day, on the authority of the Penn Society, and because Proud, 
in his History, assigns that as the day on which the Founder landed 
at New Castle. 

But it now turns out that the 24th is an anachronism. Our pains- 
taking antiquarian, John F. Watson, of Germantown, proves in the 
late edition of his curious and very interesting "Annals," (1 Vol. p. 
1.5, Note,) by the original record at New Castle, which he quotes at 
length, that Penn "arrived before the tbwne" on the 27th, and re- 
ceived possession of it on the 28th October, 1682. 

In compliance, however, with former usage, the Historical Society 
appointed the 24th October, 1844, for the observance of the day, es- 
pecially as it happened to fall upon that which completed a period 
of 200 years since the birth of Penn, an epoch which it resolved to 
celebrate. 

NOTE 2, P. 25. 
Boston is said to have contained 10,000 inhabitants when Phila- 
delphia was founded. (Vide Breck's Disc. p. 30.) In the year 1696, 



35 

there were, according to G. Thomas's Historical and Geographical 
Account of Pennsylvania, 2000 houses in Philadelpliia, " all inhabit- 
ed, most of them stately, and of brick." 



NOTE 3, P. 28. 

The following statement is extracted from the 2d Vol. of the 
United States Almanac, (1844,) a publication which is remarkable 
for the accuracy of its statistics: — 

Real Estate. 
The value of the Real Estate and Personal Property in Pennsylva- 
nia, according to an estimate made from the returns of the Mar- 
shals, in taking the last census, and from returns of the County 
Commissioners, is stated as follows, in an article published in the 
" Protector." 

Value of 30,080,000 acres of land in Pennsylvania, in- 
cluding water-power, quarries, mines of iron, salt, 

coal, and all other minerals, .'^752,000,000 

Value of 300,000 dwelling-houses, 300,000,000 

Value of barns, work-shops, stores, furnaces, rolling- 
mills, forges, and factories, 248,000,000 

Value of 216.5 miles of rail-roads and canals, .... 70,250,673 
Value of public buildings of all kinds, bridges, gas and 
water-works, 29,746,327 



Total value of Real Estate, .... $1,400,000,000 

Personal Property. 

Value of36.5,129 horses and mules, at $60 $21,907,740 

Value of 1,172,665 neat cattle, at $15, 17,589,975 

Value ofl,767,620 sheep, at $2.50, 4,419,450 

Value ofl,503,964 swine, at $3.50, 5,263,874 

Value of Poultry, 685,801 



Carried over, 49,866,840 



36 

Brought over, !iS49,866,840 

Value of furniture of 300,000 houses, including plate, 
jewelry, watches, cloaks and wearing apparel, . . 135,000,000 

Value of carriages, stages, wagons, farmers' imple- 
ments, mechanics' tools, books of all kinds, ships, 
brigs, barges, schooners, canal boats, rail-road cars, 
stationary and locomotive steam engines, and steam- 
boats 300,000,000 

Value of goods, wares, merchandise, stocks, money, 

and all other personal property, at least .... 21.5,133,160 

Value of personal property, 700,000,000 

Total value of the State, $2,100,000,000 

Annual Products. 
In the same article the estimated value of the Annual Products 
is as follows: — 

Value of 113,395 tons pig iron, at $30, $3,401,850 

Value of additional, by various manufactures, . . . 17,652,283 

Value of anthracite coal mined, 5,000,000 

Value of bituminous coal mined, 4,000,000 

Value of agricultural products, 126,620,617 

Value of manufactures, except iron, 43,151,843 



Annual Products of the State, .... $200,026,523 

In the iron business alone, according to the same work, for 1843, 
(1 Vol. 275-6,) employment is given to 20,000 workmen in Penn- 
sylvania. The annual value of the iron trade is estimated, in the 
same work, to exceed 22,000,000 of dollars. 

NOTE 4, P. 28. 

The earliest trade in Anthracite coal in Pennsylvania, was in that 
which is denominated the Lehigh, in the year 1820, when 365 tons 
were sent from the mines. The Schuylkill trade commenced in the 



37 

year 1825, when 7,143 tons were sent to market. In that year, the 
number of tons sent from the Lehigh mines was 28,393. In the 
year 1839, 221,850 tons were sent to market of the Lehigh coal, and 
442,607 tons of the Schuylkill, making the aggregate shipments 
782,458 tons. (Vide History of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation 
Company, p. 47.) In 1840, the total quantity sent to market, of An- 
thracite coal, was 865,414 tons; and on the 31st December, 1844, it 
amounted to 1,631,699 tons, showing the trade to be nearly doubled 
within the last four years. (Vide Miners' Journal for January 11, 
1845.) 

We have no means of ascertaining the amount sent from the Bitu- 
minous mines of Pennsylvania, as the trade is chiefly in the hands 
of private persons, who are numerous, and whose individual ship- 
ments are small. But it is believed by gentlemen who are conver- 
sant with those districts of the State, in which this mineral abounds, 
that the trade exceeds that in the Anthracite. The mining opera- 
tions of coal in Pennsylvania, may therefore be safely stated to be 
3,000,000 of tons, annually, of which about 2,000,000 are exported, 
according to the computation made in the text. 

NOTE 5, P. 32. 

An impression prevails, that the Declaration of Independence was 
not si^ne^ before the 2d of August, 1776, when it was engrossed. 
There is no doubt, that the engrossed copy was signed by the 
members, but there is nothing inconsistent in this fact, with the 
immediate signing of the paper adopted on the 4th of July. Accord- 
ing to the "Secret Journals" of Congress, the following resolution 
was adopted on the 19th July:— "Resolved, that the Declaration 
passed on the fourth, be fairly engrossed on parchment, with the 
title and style of ' The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United 
States of America,' and that the same, when engrossed, be signed 
by every member of Congress." On the 2d of August, it is stated 
in the " Secret Journals," that " the Declaration, being engrossed 
and compared at the table, was signed by the members." (Vide Se- 
cret Journals, 1 Vol. p. 46.) In the Journal of Congress, under date 



38 

the 4th July, 1776, after noting the adoption of the Declaration, 
and inserting it, the words are, — " the foregoing Declaration was 
by order of Congress engrossed and signed by the members," (Vide 
Journal, 2 Vol. 241 and 245.) There is no entry in the "Secret 
Journals " under date the 4th of July, a hiatus occurring between 
the dates, June 24 and July 8, 1776. In Mr. Jefferson's Notes of 
the Debates, printed among the Madison papers, we have the most 
authentic account of the doings of that celebrated Congress. He 
expresses himself thus, — " The debates having taken up the greater 
parts of the second, third and fourth days of July, were, in the 
evening of the last, closed; the Declaration was reported by the 
Committee, agreed to by the House, and signed by every member, 
except Mr. Dickinson." (Vide "The Papers of James Madison," «Scc. 
1 Vol. p. 18.) 

There would be an end of the question, as to whether the Decla- 
ration was signed by the members present on the 4th of July, if the 
paper before Congress were still in existence. Unhappily, however, 
that paper is not known to exist, nor, it is believed, is the original 
rough draft, of which a fac simile is preserved in Randolph's edition 
of Jefferson's works. There is a copy in the hand-writing of Mr. 
Jefferson, with alterations noted in the margin, in the possession 
of "The American Philosophical Society;" but whether this is the 
precise paper adopted by Congress, and if so, whether it is complete, 
are subjects of conjecture. No signature is affixed to it, nor is it 
further authenticated, than that it is clearly traced to Mr. Jefferson, 
and is indubitably in his hand-Avriting. This precious MS. was 
sent on the 8th July, 1776, by Mr. Jefferson, to Richard Henry Lee, 
(See Memoir of Lee, by his Grandson, pp. 175 and 275,) and was the 
gift of his grandson to G. W^ashington Smith, Esq. of Philadelphia, 
who presented it to the Philosophical Society. It is preserved in a 
glass case. — There is another fair copy of the Declaration, in the 
hand-writing of Mr. Jefferson, among the Madison Papers, and of 
which a fac simile is published in the 3d Volume, with a verification 
of its accuracy, as a copy, by Henry D. Gilpin, Esq., under whose 
excellent superintendence this important historical work was given 
to the world. 



39 

The engrossed copy on parchment, with the original signatures, 
under the resolution of the 19th July, is in the Department of State, 
at Washington ; but the two MSS. referred to, are the only copies 
of the Declaration of Independence, in the hand-writing of the au- 
thor, which are known to be in existence. 

The late Governor M'Kean, of Pennsylvania, complains of the 
injustice done to him, in omitting his name from the published copy 
of the Declaration, though he voted for and signed it, as a member 
of the Congress, from Delaware. His grandson, the Honourable 
Thomas M. Pettit, has called my attention to a letter, written 
on the subject by Mr. M'Kean to Mr. A. J. Dallas, in 1797, and 
printed in the Laws of Pennsylvania, edited by Mr. Dallas. (1 Vol. 
Appendix, p. 54, Note.) In this letter, Mr. M'Kean says that he 
" signed the Declaration after it had been engrossed on parchment." 
It is well known, that the name of this eminent civilian, statesman, 
and patriot, appears among the signers to the engrossed copy on 
parchment; but may not its exclusion from the Journal of Congress, 
(2d Vol. 246,) be accounted for by supposing, that owing to some 
forgotten accident, he did not, in fact, sign the paper copy on the 
4th of July, with those members who then subscribed it? The omis- 
sion of his name from the printed list in the Journal of Congress, 
can be explained upon no other hypothesis. 



Since writing the above note, I have consulted the Memoir written by 
Mr. Jefferson of himself, in the 1st Vol. of Randolph's edition of his wri- 
tings. On pages 15 and 16, Mr. Jefferson uses the same language which 
he employs in his Notes of the Debates, preserved in the Madison Papers, 
as above quoted. At the foot of the Declaration, which is introduced, he 
says, (p. 21,) "The Declaration was signed on the 4th on paper, was en- 
grossed onparckmeiit, and signed again on the 2d of August." This is con- 
clusive of the question. On page 94 of the same Volume, may be found 
Jefferson's letter of May 12, 1819, to Samuel A. Wells, in which he satisfac- 
torily explains the apparent objection arising from subsequent signal ures. On 
page 98 he says, " It was not till the 2d of July, that the Declaration itself 
was taken up; nor till the 4th that it was decided, and it was signed bv 
every member present, except Mr. Dickinson. The subsequent signatures 
of members who were not then present, and some of them not in office, is 
easily explained, &c." The interest attached to this great act, in the drama 



40 

of the revolution, and the assumption in the text, of a fact which is differ- 
ently stated by various public writers, such as Daniel Webster, John F. 
Watson, and others, may justify these details. 

While on such a topic, it may be as well to add, that various buildings 
have been jsointed to in Philadelphia, as entitled, in the opinions of their re- 
spective champions, to the renown of being that in which this important 
State Paper was written. In order to set the controversy at rest, the vene- 
rable Dr. Mease wrote to Mr. Jefferson, and ascertained that his lodgings in 
1776, were at the S. W. corner of Seventh and High Streets, in which house 
his letter assures Dr. M., it was penned. — In Toicn's Gazette it is stated, 
that on the 8th of July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was formally 
read by Capt. John Hopkins, commander of an armed brig, " to many thou- 
sand spectators," in the State House Yard. Watson agrees with the Ga- 
zette, that it was read by Capt. Hopkins. I find that a journalist of that 
day mentions the fact, but names John Nixon, as the reader. (See Mar- 
shall's Remembrancer, edited by Wm. Duane, Jr. pp. 93, 94.) The paper 
read on the 8th July, in the State House Yard, — whence the present name, 
Independence Square, — was in print, and authenticated by the signatures of 
Hancock and Thomson. But traditional evidence speaks of a previous read- 
ing of the Declaration to the people, from the front steps, on Chestnut 
Street, on the morning after its adoption by Congress. 



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